SCOTT SIMON, Host:
And he joins us from New York City. Thanks very much for being with us.
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LARRY ASHMEAD: I'm glad to be here.
SIMON: Who is Bertha Venation?
ASHMEAD: Well, actually, it's the only non-real name in the book. It's a drag queen in London who adopted the name.
SIMON: You began to take a shine to unusual names from the time you were youngster.
ASHMEAD: Well, my mother's best friends were Bettina Button(ph) and Edith Shortsleeve(ph).
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ASHMEAD: And she didn't wear short sleeves.
SIMON: I don't blame her. It would only expose to ridicule. And you have a whole section on aptly named professionals.
ASHMEAD: I don't know which comes first - the profession or the name. There's a dentist named Dr. Fang. There's a gynecologist named Dr. Ovary(ph). There's another gynecologist called Dr. Cherry(ph), which I thought was funny and most people do, but they don't.
SIMON: I've turned a page in your book to some of the aptly named professionals. And no particular order, of course, probably the most famous is Simon Rattle, music director of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
ASHMEAD: That's right.
SIMON: But there's Hugh Fish(ph) who's an environmental engineer; Johnny Worm(ph) who grows peaches in California; Andrew Inches, a videotape editor in New York City. You have a section here too on people with improbable names who marry each other.
ASHMEAD: Well, that's a big problem because you get sort of hyphenated names and first names that don't go with last names. I called a woman whose married name is Gay Beech(ph) and said, I think it's funny and she said it's spelled B-E-E-C-H. No A.
SIMON: And Dan Coffee(ph) sends along the recollection that he's niece married a man with a last name Bean.
ASHMEAD: That's right. Coffee Bean.
SIMON: Yes.
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SIMON: And a Joseph Cotton's(ph) son married a woman named Velvet Satin(ph).
ASHMEAD: And so she became Velvet Satin-Cotton.
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SIMON: Well, Mr. Ashmead, been a pleasure to talk to you.
ASHMEAD: Well, it's been very nice talking to you.
SIMON: Go to see her tonight, and hundreds of other funny names of real people. And this is NPR News.